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Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The Drew Peterson Case Is A Primer For Really Bad Police Work

The revelations in tonight’s Chicago’s media publishing and broadcasting are about the former friends of Drew Peterson who became agents/informants for the Illinois State Police.

Len Wawczak, 42, said he and his wife, Paula Stark, 38, have known and been friends with Peterson for 16 years. That has now been changed forever. The cooperative couple wore police provided eavesdropping devices for months in an effort to snare Peterson in an incriminating conversation.

The real problem here is that inconvenient Bill of Rights. Since Peterson invoked his rights to not answer questions and has a lawyer, the police and their agents must first read Peterson his Miranda rights before that ask him questions. In fact, the police are not even permitted to talk with Peterson at all. This however does not prevent the police from arresting Peterson if they develop probable cause.

It’s abundantly clear that Stacy Peterson needs to be found and anyone involved in a criminal act should get all the services that the Will County Courthouse was constructed to provide.

This case has become a sad comedy of errors by overzealous cops, busybody neighbors and armchair Internet fueled, amateur detectives that don’t have a life.

Any real evidence and prosecution that ever surfaces in this case will be tainted by:

1. The unlawful and unnecessary revocation of Peterson’s FOID card. 2. The bogus arrest over a department approved SWAT weapon.3. The use by police of civilian agents to violate Peterson’s rights against self-incrimination and unreasonable warrantless searches.4. Police engaging in a constant war of harassment against Drew Peterson instead of doing a legitimate investigation.5. The unreasonable deprivation and holding of Peterson’s personal property.

Peterson will simply make a claim that he’s being framed and a jury would see that must be the case. This has been all about getting Drew Peterson no matter the cost to our American Way of Life.

As for our heroic couple Wawczak and Stark, the book and movie rights won’t be worth anything unless they can also manufacture evidence that will convict Peterson.

Had this effort turned anything useful at all Peterson would be already locked up pending a trial. Instead all we got was a media circus to tantalize us with this sleazy police spying caper.

I’m not privy to what happened to Stacy Peterson or even have a clue if she is dead or alive. This tale is horrifically tragic as every child needs their mother and Stacy’s loved ones and family misses her dearly.

Drew Peterson is the obvious suspect and police are absolutely required to do a solid investigation starting with him.

This may well be a murder and the sad truth is more murders go unsolved than ever in our free society. That’s a small price to pay for our freedom and Liberty.

The most obvious questions I have for The Illinois State Police are:

1. How much money did they pay this couple for their services?2. Did the couple go public because they’re service were ineffective and they were terminated?

Drew Peterson is a career cop and like all of us he deserves to have the presumption of innocence we’ve fought wars to maintain.

Update: The ISP's official answer to my two questions was, "We have no comment on anything involving that Sun-Times article."

ISPEEVED is a blog site for Illinois State Police officers to express their opinion like tChicago cops do the Secondcitycop blog. They have weighed in on the Drew Peterson investigation and its latest turn into the abyss.Read it here.